In Sickness and In Health
by aussiebabe290
Summary: AU. Oneshot. Rachel had always looked after Jake- in sickness, and in health.


**This is set in the 'There's No Place Like Home' universe- I've got four brothers and they all act like babies when they're sick. My best friend (a guy) is sick and I got a phone call, whining to me how bad he felt. I can be sympathetic, when I choose to be. I didn't chose to be. Read and review!**

**Rhyleigh xoxox**

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><p>Jake Barton sneezed, for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day. Snatching a tissue from the box beside his bed, he glared furiously at the box of tablets.<p>

"How long does it take for a stupid tablet to work?" he growled angrily.

"Feeling okay there, baby?" Rachel called from the doorway, leaning against the frame. Jake shoved the box of tablets into the partially open drawer, refusing to meet her gaze.

"Fine". He coughed once more.

"Right".

Jake groaned, wishing that she'd go back to the lounge room and continue with whatever she had been doing. He had been sick in bed for two days, and she was insistent on coming to check on him. He was a man, and no little cold was going to send him crawling to the doctor.

"Let me take your temperature", Rachel wheedled, heading towards him with a thermometer.

"No". Jake crossed his arms like a stubborn child, sticking his bottom lip out in a pout.

"You could park a car on your lip, babe".

"No".

"Jake, if you die because your temperature is that high-"

"Fine".

Before the world was even out of his mouth, Rachel had jammed the thermometer inside, making him gag.

"Ow".

"Baby, it's for your own good", she soothed, brushing his sweaty fringe of his forehead. "Stop moving, it keeps hitting your teeth!"

Jake simply leant back against the pillows, folding his arms grumpily, frowning at his girlfriend. He could see the uneasy look in her eyes, as they watched the numbers in the thermometer rise.

"Jake, I swear, if it's over forty degrees, so help me God I will drag you to the emergency room", she glared.

There was something in her eyes that made Jake believe her.

Plucking the instrument from his mouth, she scanned her eyes over it. "Thirty nine point six".

"No doctor!" he cheered, ending in a coughing fit.

"Serves you right", Rachel seethed, heading out of the room. "God, you're worse than you were when we were ten".

She suddenly had a flashback of her ten year old pigtailed self, helping his mother chase the ear infected boy around the house, the eardrops sitting on the coffee table. Eventually, she had pinned him to the carpet, threatening him with the thought of going deaf and his ears closing up completely. Jake had whined and squirmed the whole ten seconds it took Grace to drip the antibiotics into his ears, resuming his position on the lounge with a stack of his favourite movies and a slice of Rachel's mother's famous chocolate cake. Rachel had sighed then, and she sighed now, watching him grumpily flick through the channels in their bed.

He was never going to change.

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><p>A little under two hours later, Jake was huddled in a chair in the emergency room, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. Rachel chuckled to herself, walking over towards him from her place at the desk. He threw her a bitter look, trying to hold his teeth still.<p>

"It's for your own good", she said calmly.

"Y-y-y-you don't know t-t-t-that", he chattered, shivering and refusing to meet her eye.

"Baby, you're sweating, shivering and running a forty degree temperature", Rachel said gently. "I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Jake, because I know you think you're immune to these kind of bugs- God forbid should they attack someone like you- but you're sick".

Jake was quiet for a few minutes. But then he spoke up. "Rach?"

"Yes?"

"I'm really, really cold", he sheepishly admitted.

Laughing, Rachel wrapped her arms around him. The moment he was in her arms, his shivering subsided slightly. For someone so small and petite, she stored heat like a fireplace. Ever since they were kids, he could make her feel better. A gentle kiss to his forehead made him smile, but he frowned when she let her lips linger, no doubtedly trying to guess his current body temperature.

"Rachel", he croaked.

She pulled away. "Sorry".

* * *

><p>"I told you it was just the flu", he glared, as his tiny girlfriend lead him out towards her tiny red Beetle. With a sigh, she unlocked the car and climbed through the passenger's side to make herself comfortable in the driver's.<p>

"Your temperature was forty degrees, Jake, I couldn't risk it". She swallowed hard. "I wasn't going to lose you".

He blinked guiltily, moving his eyes to the floor of the car.

The ride back to their place was silent- upon unlocking the front door, he fell down on the lounge, sighing heavily.

"Uh uh, no". Rachel shook her head, setting down the bag from the chemist and the bag from the supermarket. "absolutely not, you're going to bed. You heard what they said- rest is the only thing that's going to get you better right now".

She handed him a glass of orange juice and two tablets, watching him as he swallowed them down. Pushing him towards their bedroom, she watched as he climbed into bed.

"I love you", Jake croaked, reaching for the remote.

"I love you too".

Rachel didn't even make it to nine o'clock, before she took off practically running towards their bedroom. Jake was slumped in his half of the bed, snuggled deeply under the blankets, snoring gently with a sheen of sweat across his forehead. Snuggling under the blankets, Jake rolled over to face her.

"What are you doing?" he wanted to know. "You said so yourself, you don't want to get sick".

"I don't care, I've gotten practically every sickness you've ever gotten in your entire life, this one isn't going to make much of a difference". She snuggled into his arms, reclaiming the spot she'd been forced to neglect for days.

"I love you", Jake told her.

But Rachel's eyes were already closed. With a smile on his face for the first time in days, Jake closed his eyes once more.


End file.
